Meeting Gin
by The Curious Kills
Summary: A 20-year-old Aikido student in Texas discovers that fact is more irritating than fiction when she is attacked by a Hollow on her way home and meets her favorite character from "Bleach".
1. Meeting Gin

**MEETING GIN**

I didn't know what it was that had hit me at first – all I knew was that something in my chest had made a loud cracking noise, and it hurt. I may not have expected the force of the blow throwing me across the street, either, but I knew how to fall. I quickly tilted my head like Kashiwaya-sensei had shown us during his last seminar and let gravity take me. Then the pain returned, along with a scary spread of warmth I knew was blood.

That's when I heard the creature's roar and realized what I was facing. At first I thought I'd lost my mind – maybe hit my head a little too hard when I fell or something – but as I turned around and caught a glimpse of that ugly, masked face, I knew that I was being attacked by an honest-to-goodness Hollow, right off the sketchpad of Tito Kube.

My chest hurt too much to talk or even move, really, and there was nobody around who could see me or run to my aid. Therefore I could only watch with numb incredulity as a manga machination prepared to devour my heart and soul.

Just then a blur of black and silver darted across my vision and there was a flash of light reflected by tempered steel. Numbly, my mind recognized this blur as a Shinigami. I couldn't see much of what happened next, but whatever it was, it happened quickly. Soon the Hollow was disappearing in the form of black smoke, dissolving, eating away into the aether. I tried sitting up to get a better view of the Shinigami who had stepped in to save me, but my chest and boobs protested, and so I laid back down again with a sharp gasp of pain.

The black-clad figure turned at the sound of my breath and I almost gasped again (until I remembered my injuries) when I realized who it was. Switching to my best Japanese, I tried to speak to him. "O-namae wa Gin, ne? Ichimaru Gin?"

The silvery-haired spirit smiled so bradly that it made my jaw hurt just to see it, much less think about it. "Hai. Ichimaru Gin desu. O-namae wa?" He returned the question with a quirky, adorable tip of his head to one side. I immediately began hoping there wasn't a real Matsumoto Rangiku as well.

"Suton Sera desu," I tried to reply, but barely got out my name before I had to fall silent again and breath carefully for a few minutes. Gin came closer and smiled down at me. If I hadn't watched the anime, I would have thought he was leering at me.

"Daijobu ka?"

"Iie," I responded curtly, then went back to breathing. Wasn't it obvious? I wasn't bleeding and gasping like a grounded fish because I felt like it, that was for sure. I loved Ichimaru's character, yes, but sometimes I had to admit that he was a bit of an asshole.

Ichimaru Gin knelt by my side and began looking over my injuries without a sound, his smile still the same aching span it had been when he first spoke to me. I noticed with some relief that he didn't bear any resemblance to the guy who had played him in the Rock Musical (Tutiya Yuichi). I pretty much knew he wasn't gay, either. After a few minutes, he started opening my gi without so much as a by-your-leave, and, in reflex, I started slapping at his hands with a staccato "eh-te-te-te-te-te!" Gin paused for a moment, withdrawing his slender, dexterous hands as he waited for me to stop, then calmly shrugged and resumed what he was doing. I was hurting too much to slap at him again, and only hoped that he wouldn't notice the five or ten pounds I'd been trying to lose.

As he finished opening the gi and proceeded to rip open my pink cancer-ribbon t-shirt from the bottom up, I finally realized what he was doing. Ichimaru Gin was trying to remove all obstruction from the wound so he could take care of it for me, and had absolutely no interest – very little, anyway; he was sort of Human – in my body at all. I felt kind of stupid at first for not catching on immediately and slapping at his hands, but then consoled myself by thinking, _Hey, he should have told me in the first place…_

As soon as he'd gotten the wound cleared up and in the open, Gin gave a small "Arara" of patronizing sympathy and began to heal it with kido.

You have no idea how weird magic looks in real life. You think you know what it looks like from watching Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or some other fantasy movie in 3D, but that's all nothing compared to seeing the real thing. This man's hand lit up like a firefly's rump in the dark, and I could feel the glow penetrate my body and begin to heal my wound, aiding my own natural repair system to get the job done faster and to return my chest back to a state of rosy good health. For what seemed like hours I laid there silently, staring at Gin's hand, then up at his face, than back at his hand, and then at my wound, which was feeling and looking better by the minute.

When finally all that was left was a bruise, Ichimaru stopped healing me and rose to his feet. My chest was aching, but I was able to get up too. I knew that he was about to leave, and I still had questions to ask him before he did. He was just about to disappear in one of those flashy steps that Shinigami are famous for when I spoke up quickly, saying, "Matte, kudasai."

The man paused and turned to look at me over his shoulder. "Doushite ka?"

Knowing that it would be a while before I was able to ask him everything I wanted to know in his own language, I decided to try and hold him back with simple questions until I could get him to promise that he'd come back later. "Kotaetachi ga hoshii no desu ga."

His grin got even wider as he though for a moment… then answered in perfect, plain English, "Maybe later," – dashing away before I could shout at him the colorful metaphor that came to mind.

"YOU ADORABLE BASTARD!"

I returned home that night achy and fuming, to say the least. Mom asked me where I got the bruise, and I blamed it on Mattson-sensei, claiming that he'd chosen me as his uke again. Everybody believed me and began offering sympathy, jokes, puns and Ibueprofen until I finally stalked off to my garage bedroom, madder than a wet hen.

My new status on Facebook?

"You win this time, Ichimaru Gin… You win this time."


	2. Sarah Strikes Back

**SARAH STRIKES BACK**

Doubtless, you've read my story about how I first met Gin and not believed it. Well, that's not a problem; I know it happened, and HE knows it happened, and doubtless Kira and Matsumoto know it by now. It's kinda hard to hide a big, beautiful shiner when you're that pale…

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first few weeks after I met Ichimaru Gin, I was careful not to miss a chance at catching him in the Living World again. Every Monday, Thursday and Sunday I trekked to the dojo in Houston for my Aikido classes, and on the way back I ALWAYS made sure to look for him in the shadows. Don't get me wrong; I kept an eye out for other Hollows too. I wasn't about to forget that I'd have been Hueco-terds by now if it hadn't been for Ichimaru Gin zipping in the way when he did.

After about two and a half weeks of no results, I decided to try a different approach. Instead of just waiting for him to show up again on Lexington Boulevard – I wasn't sure my ribs would invite a total replay of last time's events – I decided to actively hunt him down. That's what us southern belles are good at, right? So I started going to places I figured an Osaka-born Japanese man would want to go. There were plenty of possibilities. There was a little Kareoke bar off the U of H campus; I tried that, and even sang a little, too. There was also an awesome (and cheap) sushi buffet in Rosenberg; I even had lunch there one evening while I was on the look-out for him. I even went so far beyond as to visit the Taisho's, a fancy Japanese bar and grill outside the Sugarland Town Center (Get it? Ichimaru-taisho, going to Taisho's?) but I couldn't even afford the air-conditioning in that place, and I still didn't find Gin.

Finally, I just gave up. I'd never see him again. After all, in the anime, Shinigami weren't supposed to leave Soul Society very often anyway. So that was that.

However… Just how much had Tito Kube made up? How much was real, and how much had he oulled from his own head? I began going back over the Bleach manga in its original language, trying to decipher what was probably real and what wasn't (and expanding my own vocabulary in the meantime, ha!). I even enlisted the help of my little sister, Laura, who loves arriving at theories made up out of fictional information, and I still didn't find out anything worth my time.

Then, one day, he showed up. You won't believe where.

I was at the bus stop waiting for the 77 to take me onto the University of Houston's downtown campus. My usual fellow commuters weren't there today, so as soon as I saw him I was able to immediately blurt out, "Hey you!"and, in one magnificent leap, tackle him as I had tackled my little brothers in many a backyard football game. A nearby bum gave me an odd look, but I didn't give a damn. This guy was going down – and down he went.

"Itai!" the Shinigami exclaimed as flesh hit concrete, and I swiftly got up off of him, maintaining a pin I'd learned from the dojo and practiced on my siblings more than once. Gin relaxed into the hold and resumed smiling as though I'd just shaken his hand and asked him about his day.

"Ohayoo gozaimasu, Suton-san," he greeted me as if he didn't know a lick of English, "O-hisashiburi desu, ne?"

"Ru sei!" I ordered him irritably, "You know I know you can speak English!"

"Soo desu ka?" he laughed pleasantly. I gave him a displeased scowl.

"If I let you up, will you stay put?"

"Honor bright."

I checked his fingers; they weren't crossed, so I let him up. As he regained his feet, I again was amazed at how awesome he looked in real life. If he wasn't such a snot, I'd have kissed him right there. He calmly dusted off his white robe and dark shihakusho and then straightened, waiting for me to speak.

I only glared. I was still trying to figure out how to say what I wanted to say to him, even now that I knew he could speak English. Gin dipped his head a little to one side and stared right back through half-closed eyes. I resolutely refused to giggle or even crack a smile, despite the temptation; it was so hard staying mad at that guy!

Finally, he spoke. "Nanda?"

I couldn't help but explode. "Why the hell didn't you tell me you spoke English?" I demanded, shouting at the top of my lungs, "Why the hell are you even here? I know you're not an anime character now, or you'd be a lot flatter! And who the heck do you think you are, anyway? You could say you healed me last time, but I still had a bruise for a week and it HURT! Okay? It HURT! BAD! And I had to blame it on Mattson so nobody'd think I was playing around with them!" By this tim, I was stomping around and gesturing like a five-year-old, I was so mad, and Ichimaru Gin, of course, wasn't phased a bit. Finally, I squared myself, looked Gin in the face – his eyes were still closed, or I'd have looked there instead – and screamed at the top of my lungs, "YOU ADORABLE BASTARD!"

As my last words echoed off the surrounding brick walls, the Japanese sprite stood as motionless as a cardboard cut-out… waiting for more, maybe? When more didn't come, he just smiled and asked me, "Could you please say that in Japanese?"

Now you know how he got that big black shiner, because no southern girl in her right mind could have held back after that little stunt. And the saddest thing is… I think he let me. It certainly felt good, except for the fact that my hand had a bruise for at least seventy-two hours because I held it wrong, and it still hurt until sometime after that week end. That guy has a hard head!

Gin took a pained step backward and pressed one slender hand to his left eye for a moment, and then glanced back at me with his other eye. Just like in the anime, it was colored a very pretty robins-egg-blue.

"Sore desu ka?"

"Do we have to talk like Chewy and Han Solo?" I demanded, already feeling kinda bad about hitting him, even though I knew deep down that I'd had a damn good reason in doing so, "Speak English."

"Iie."

"If you don't, I'll hit you again."

"Honto ni desu ka?"

My fist came up, and he disappeared, reappearing just beyond my reach. Fuming, I took a step forward, and he flickered backward once more. After a few more false starts, I finally shouted, "Hold still, will ya?"

That's when my bus decided to pull up. What timing! Ichimaru Gin moved to go, and just before he disappeared I shouted, "Ichimaru, wait - !" but stopped when I realized that 1) it wouldn't do any good, and 2) the bus driver, the bum and my to-be-fellow passengers were now all staring at me, looking something like this: O.o

As I gave up on catching Ichimaru again in the near future, I grabbed my backpack and laptop and boarded the bus, resolving to change my facebook status again once I got back home.

"Omigod, I think I know what being Schizophrenic feels like now."

I'd spell-check it later.


End file.
